^/j^'c.yriliiVcf^. 



R. DlLLIl 



ORATION. 



AN 



ORATION 



DELIVERED Bl:FORE THE 



SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND 



PHILADELPHIA, 



DECEMBER 22d, 1847, 



THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS, 



WILLIAM H. Dillingham. 



/x: v^7b 



1.66©*= 



PHILADELPHIA: 

JOHN C. CLARK, PRINTER, 60 DOCK STREET. 
1847. 



.^nnibcv.'sJtrs of tf)c Han^tufl of tijc IDflsrims, 
Philadelphia, Dec. 22d, 1847. 

Dear Sir, 

At a meeting of the Board of Officers of the Society of the Sons 
of New England, held after the public exercises of this day, it was — 
^'Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to Wm. H. 
Dillingham, Esquire, for his eloquent Oration, and that a copy be re- 
quested for publication." 

It affords us great pleasure to transmit to you the aforegoing reso- 
lution, and to accompany it with a hope that you will regard with 
favour the request therein contained. 

We have the honour to be, with sentiments of esteem. 
Your obedient servants, 

JOS. R. CHANDLER, 
JNO. W. CLAGHORN, 
JNO. T. S. SULLIVAN, 

Com7nittee. 
To Wm H. Dillingham, Esq. 



Philadelphia, Dec. 2Sd, 1847. 
Gentlemen, 

In compliance with your request on behalf of the Society of the 
Sons of New England, I submit herewith a copy of the Discourse 
delivered at the recent Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 
W^ith my best acknowledgments for the handsome terms in which 
the vote of your Board of Officers has been conveyed, 

I am, gentlemen. 

Very truly yours, 

W. H. DILLINGHAM. 
To Joseph R. Chandler, 

John W. Claghorn, , 

John T. S. Sullivan, Esqs. 

Committee. 



ORATION. 



History has its narrative and its moral. Nothing is more de- 
serving of attention than the lessons it teaches. But they are not 
always to be found upon the surface. Philosophy teaching by 
examples, in parables which he wlio runs may read, was reserved 
for him Avho spake as never man spoke. History takes its hue 
and colouring from the writer. The same transactions and the 
same characters may be so presented as to merit either admira- 
tion or contempt. To be infallible and impartial is not given to 
man. For the most part we peruse its pages or listen to the 
recital of its incidents for amusement rather than for instruction. 
But it is not in this manner we can get to understand the character 
of the Pilgrim Fathers. They belonged to a sect that has been 
much calumniated. In this work royalty and infidelity exhausted 
their powers : happily, sophistry and ridicule are no longer in the 
ascendant. It is not in the pages of sceptical casuists and dog- 
gerel rhymsters that the men of this age will look for the motives 
and objects of the first great champions of civil liberty. 

Casting a hasty glance at the past, we see a little company 
of persecuted men in England making their escape to Holland, 
whence, after taking breath, they come to America and settle in 
the wilderness. What is there in this movement to excite our 
admiration? Is it even possible that the day on which these 
pilgrims landed has come to be regarded as an era in history — one 
of those great way-marks by which we measure the track of time 
— and that we have assembled here now for purposes of mutual 



G 

congratulation and joyous greeting, upon our own personal rela- 
tions to it? Considered as a part of the narrative of history only, 
without reference to previous events bearing upon it, or subse- 
quent developments flowing from it, amidst the great commotions 
of human affairs, it is as nothing. Let us attend a little to the 
moral. The "great mistress of wisdom" presents us here ex- 
amples, to which, on this day, our birth-right challenges attention. 
It was not until the close of the fourteenth century that the old 
world had heard of the new. Thousands of years had rolled on — 
generation succeeded generation, and nations had their rise and 
fall. Babylon and Nineveh had come and gone; Egypt had built 
her pyramids and filled her catacombs; Greece and Rome had 
enjoyed, each in turn, its brief day of power and splendour ; the 
Alexandrian Library had been burnt, and the hoofs of the Caliphs 
had trampled upon all that Avas sacred in Palestine. The age of 
chivalry was gone, with its Charlemagne, its Richards, and its 
Edwards, leaving behind its feudal system, iron-bound and rough- 
shod, with some foot-prints of the Moor upon the banks of Guadal- 
quiver. The Papal hierarchy had reached its zenith, and kings 
still stood in awe of the sovereign pontiff. They had thought 
themselves Avise in geography in that same old world, and have 
left us their outline of the figure of the earth as they imagined it. 
They had had their commerce in papyrus ; they had still their illu- 
minated manuscripts, their libraries of hundreds of thousands of 
volumes, and their very few copies of the Bible. They had 
watched the stars with the aid of their own divine philosophy, 
and rejoiced in astrology ; they had subjected every material sub- 
stance to the test of alchymy, and been untiring in their searches 
after the philosopher's stone. Aristode had been regarded for ages 
as the ne phis ultra of human wisdom, and St. T'homas Aquinas 
was their great master in theology. To say that the earth moved, 
even so late as the time of Bacon, merited and received condign 
punishment al the bunds of sp|f-constituted guardians of the truth. 



Europe was just emerging from its " night of a thousand years," 
when Columbus, by the aid of the mariner's compass, made his 
first voyage, " due west," and America was discovered. The new 
route to India was traced ; and the ocean thenceforth became the 
highway of nations. The commerce of the world was transferred 
from the camel and the caravan to swift ships and proud navies, 
borne by every wind to every clime. Merchants soon became 
merchant princes, and new avenues were opened to wealth and 
power. Human nature was beginning to assert its claim to a 
higher destiny. 

These mighty influences, the mariner's compass, the art of print- 
ing, the revival of learning, and the reformation, had been in 
operation about a century, when this little band of persecuted men 
sought an asylum in the new world. 

Their number was but one hundred, all told. The bark in 
which they crossed the ocean was of less capacity than that of 
one of the craft which navigate our Schuylkill canal. The length 
of their voyage was the same with that of Columbus, a little more 
than a century before. The Spaniards had held their " revels in 
the halls of the Montezumas" during the greater part of this cen- 
tury. Virginia had been settled a few years, and contained from 
five hundred to one thousand inhabitants. What we now call 
New England was regarded as an island — a mistake not corrected 
in old England so late as the time of an official despatch of Lord 
North during our revolution. They came from England, and our 
thoughts are naturally turned to the condition of things in England 
at the time. They had not much glass for their houses, and not a 
great deal of linen for their persons ; no tea or coftee, and but 
little sugar for their tables, in old England then. They had no 
science of chemistry or of geology : no knowledge of electricity 
or of the power of steam ; scarcely any manufactures, but very 
imperfect agricidture, and very little horticulture. Cross-bows 
had scarcely gone out of use in war. and their fire arms, generally. 



8 

had match-locks. They had their old baronial establishments, 
their ruined castles, and deserted monasteries ; their magnificent ca- 
thedrals, their two great universities, their vast enclosures for parks 
and preserves : they had monuments of the times of the Druids, 
and abiding evidence that England, for two centuries, had been a 
Roman province. They boasted of a constitution, but it existed 
principally in custom, depending upon uncertain memory, and 
there were precedents of all kinds; those favouring prerogative 
greatly prevailing over those in favour of liberty. From the peas- 
ant to the prince, the distance was more awful than we can well 
imagine. For five thousand years the human race had been sub- 
ject, all the world over, to the dominion of arbitrary power. From 
the earliest period of recorded time, history had been occupied 
with the rise and fall of " kingdoms and of kings." With excep- 
tions " few and far between," men had enjoyed no rights, liberties 
or privileges, paramount to the will of a despot. Even in the 
brightest days of the Grecian republics, Attica had its four hun- 
dred thousand slaves to its ten thousand freemen. The authority 
of kings was sustained by the simple dogma of divine right, with- 
out foundation in reason, or revelation. Its strength was in the 
antiquity and universality of the precedent, and it was great. It 
would seem to have been regarded as a sort of necessity. Men 
fell into the absurdity of fearing their own bad passions, and those 
of their fellows, without power, more than those of a ruler, of like 
passions, with all power. The great master of English history, 
upon this subject, discourses thus: — " A regard for liberty, though 
a laudable passion, ought commonly to be subjected to a reverence 
for established government, treating the opposite maxims as essen- 
tial to its very existence." This is the language of a monarchist, 
embarrassed by a sense of the value of freedom. Although liberty 
is laudable, passive obedience and non-resistance are more lauda- 
ble. It inculcates the doctrine that whatever estimate we may set 
upon the value of liberty, the maxims which go to sustain that 



9 

which is opposed to it, are essential to the very existence of the 
British crown. But the opposite of liberty is slavery ; therefore, 
according to their philosophic historian, slavery is an essential 
element in the constitution of their government. 

Curious antiquaries may indeed discover in the Wittena-gemote 
of old England, some traces of right in the subject, and some effort 
to limit the royal prerogative, and upon this ground claim similar 
virtue for modern parliaments. All have heard of their famous 
Magna Charta, which, if of any efficacy, should have been a per- 
fect safe-guard for liberty. But in sober truth the ancient British 
constitution, as has been justly said by one of their own whig his- 
torians, is "a popular delusion" — "but an echo." The maxim 
that " the king can do no wrong," makes all a delusion with which 
it is identical. The kings of England have always taken to them- 
selves just so much prerogative as the necessity created by their 
passions or their vices prompted, and as they had the power, skill 
and courage to maintain. Sometimes they have had no better excuse 
for this law of necessity than caprice and cruelty. Magna Charta 
and parliaments were mere cobwebs before such tyrants as Henry 
VIII. and the scarcely less arbitrary sovereigns who succeeded him. 
The judiciary was of little avail where the law which governed was 
the law of the strongest. Royal prerogative, as has been said of 
an army, " is so forcible, and at the same time so strong a weapon, 
that any hand which wields it, may, without much dexterity, per- 
form any operation, and attain any ascendant in human society."* 
The Tudors and the Stuarts, Avith their Court of Star Chamber, 
their Court of High Commission, and their Courts Martial, recog- 
nised no such thing as " the riglits of man :" they trampled upon 
life, liberty, property and conscience, alike. The historian al- 
ready cited remarks,—" It may be said with truth, that the Eng- 
lish, in that age, were so thoroughly subdued, that, like Eastern 



Hume. 



10 

slaves, they were inclined to admire those acts of tyranny which 
were exercised over themselves and at their own expense." What 
is tliis but to say, "however odious and detestable tyranny may be, 
there is a period in English history, when by common consent it 
was adopted in its worst shape by the nation, and not only adopted 
but admired." But this would go to establish the foundations of 
absolute power, both in the consent of the governed and in the 
genius of the people ; as, he afterwards argues, that such power is 
essential to the very existence of their government. With what 
show of truth can such a proposition be predicated of that portion 
of the population whose very name has always been a standing 
protest against tyranny ? We venture the assertion that there 
never was a time in England, since Wickliffe translated his Bible 
and preached his doctrines, when a majority of the British nation 
gave their free consent to the exercise of unlimited power by their 
sovereigns. The casuist must fall back upon the dogma of a 
divine right to do wrong ; rob the prince of the power of darkness 
of his great peculiar infamy, and transfer his governing principle, 
" evil be thou my good," to the benign ruler of the universe. 

It is certain that during the first twenty years of the reign of 
Henry VIII. parliament was not in session a twelvemonth ; and 
during his entire reign of near thirty-eight years, there were but 
ten parliaments summoned, and but twenty-three sessions held. 
His acts of cruelty are the disgrace of English history, and add to 
the thousand contradictions of their maxim, that " the king can do 
no wrong." 

Elizabeth was no less a tyrant; and with more semblance of 
virtue than her father, did more injustice to humanity. Sir James 
M'Intosh, in the beautiful history which he began, and which it 
can never be sufficiently lamented that he did not live to finish, 
says, of the death of the Lady Jane Grey, and of her treatment of 
that unfortunate lady, "It was a death sufficient to HoxorR and 



11 

DISHONOUR AN AGE."* Tliis was ill the earlier part of her more 
than forty years of arbitrary sway over the Anglo-saxoii race. 
Near its close, to find an excuse to take the life of Mary Queen of 
Scots, a man was convicted under circumstances which demon- 
strate, that an Englishman had no more security for his life under 
the Tudor Queen, than men had under the worst despotisms, 
of the worst countries, in the worst times. Her government is 
described by Hume even, as no more limited or constitutional 
than that of France, and " the English constitution as non-existent 
in her reign." The clue to her character is supposed to be found 
in her dying words, betraying, as they do, a remorseless selfish- 
ness — "that she knew nothing in the world worthy to trouble 
her;" as much as to say, she left behind not one living thing that 
she cared for : worthily and justly compared to that expression of 
the most odious of the Roman emperors — " Me pereunte pereat 
mundus." Thus much of the second example, illustrating the 
irony of the maxim as to the infallibility of sovereigns.t 

And what shall we say of James ; the prince who, like Pharaoh 
of old, would let the people neither stay nor go. One commences 
the account of his reign with the remark, that " it is the basest and 
most barren in English history." It has been said of his divine 
right to the crown of England, that " his title by descent would 
not pass an estate of twenty marks, and yet from whose accession 
was dated the doctrine of indefeasible right of birth to the crown." 
Upon the sacred immunities which such a title bestowed, the Stu- 
arts attempted to practice the tyranny of the Tudors. He is de- 
scribed by Bolingbroke as "one who could neither think with 
sense nor act with spirit." He died from the effects of "habitual 
intemperance, gout and vexation," after having cursed his country 



See note A, in Appendix, for the entire passage. 
See note B, in Appendix. 



» 12 

with a reign of twenty-three years.* Who was this king whose 
tyranny forced the Pilgrims to abandon the home of their fathers, 
and fly to the wilderness? He was the son of a mother who 
conspired with her paramour to murder her husband. He was 
the son of a mother who married the murderer of her husband. 
And who was his father ? All know the story of Darnley, and 
Ruthven, and David Rizzio, and Bothwell. The revolting scan- 
dal of the times brings into ridiculous prominence "a contemptible 
Italian music master," in connexion with a race of kings; the 
same race who persecuted our forefathers, and over the fate of 
one of whom, wlio sutfered upon the scaffold a sacrifice to justice, 
liberty and law, so many tears have been shed. Mary, Darnley, 
Ruthven, Rizzio, Bothwell; these are the names to be remem- 
bered, and these the characters to be studied, if we would form a 
just estimate of the lineage of James I. Of such materials are 
those whom artificial systems would consecrate as "the Lord's 
anointed." 

With these sovereigns religion was a mere engine of state: the 
"Defender of the Faith" sustained the church of Rome until he 
saw it interfering with his own supremacy: then he sent Catho- 
lics to the stake for refusing to acknowledge his sovereignty over 
the Pope in all ecclesiastical matters pertaining to England: he 
persecuted Protestants with equal rigour, for not believing in tran- 
substantiation. Elizabeth and James vented their fiercest wrath 
upon non-conformists and separatists. These three reigns, with 
that of Mary which intervened, cover a period of a century. 
What a period of fiery trials? What a century of suffering for 
conscience sake ? A century unparallelled in the annals of religious 
persecution — immortalized by its contributions to the "army of 
martyrs." 

The history of the Plymouth Pilgrims begins with that of the 



See note C, in Appendix. 



13 

Puritans, and the history of the Puritans is the history of the 
Reformation. The Pilgrims came out of the very heart of the 
Reformation. In studying this history we must put on the man- 
tle of Christian charity. It cannot be disposed of simply by de- 
nunciation of the Pope, or a sneer at the Reformers, or by the 
assertion of infallibility in either. The age is too far advanced 
and too enlightened for such short and dogmatical logic. Nor, 
although the satirist and the caricaturist find continual occasion 
for the exercise of their craft in denouncing and depicting the 
vices and follies of poor human nature, will we put forth the 
theory of the natural depravity of our race. 

But of all pretences in this wicked world, we do contend, that 
of kings is the greatest pretence ; and of all dogmas, that of the 
infallibility of kings the most absurd. Both are persevered in, on 
and on, against light and truth. Both are an insult to common 
sense and the common conscience of all truly enlightened Chris- 
tian men. Far better have your kings of wood and iron, and 
your queens of ivory and gold : they would not so often contradict 
your maxim, and put truth to shame. Our hope and trust is, 
that the work of the Puritans is still going on ; that man is yet to 
be elevated to his true dignity in the scale of being — when kings 
shall be regarded by all civilized nations, and by all created intel- 
ligences, as we now regard the idols of the heathen — "the work 
of men's hands." 

The Reformation was every where connected with civil liberty. 
Its seed had been sown in England, by Wicklifte, so early as 1360. 
Lord Cobham was its first great martyr. " / shrive me here unto 
Thee, my Eternal, living God,^^ were his remarkable words, ut- 
tered upon his knees with uplifted hands, as he turned from the 
archbishop who had solicited him to accept of absolution, after 
being sentenced to the stake. Many of the Lollards, who adopted 
the doctrines of Wicklifi'e, sufi'ered in the same manner, in the 
same righteous cause, "to win a starry crown." John IIuss. in 



14 

Bohemia, and Jerome of Prague, preached similar doctrines in 
the next century, and also suffered martyrdom for advocating the 
principles of religious and intellectual freedom. Whence came 
this little band of Christian men, known among us as the United 
Brethren, or Moravians, distinguished for purity and virtue, "liv- 
ing in the world and yet not of the world," retaining traits of 
primitive simplicity, uncontaminated, and unsophisticated by the 
fashions and manners of artificial life ? They are the descendants 
of those Avho followed John Huss. 

" In England the torch was lit which first showed the nations 
how to emancipate themselves from the slavery under which they 
had groaned for so many ages."* Luther, in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, carried out the great work which WicklifTe had begun. But, 
according to the Philosophy of History, the Lutheran movement 
in Germany was sustained liy the principle, that it was "the right 
of the civil ruler to reform religion, and to maintain it as reform- 
ed."! The Calvinistic movement which came after it, was a po- 
pular movement, independent of and sometimes in defiance of the 
civil power. Its principal seat, originally, was in France and the 
Low Countries, where "the connexion between civil and religious 
liberty forced itself upon the eyes and hearts of all Protestants. ";{: 
The school where these doctrines were taught was at Geneva. 
Hither, those who fled from the Spanish regime, while it held 
sway in England, resorted. They cherished their peculiar doc- 
trines Avith a zeal proportioned to the persecution endured in the 
cause. When, upon the accession of Elizabeth, the fires of Smith- 
field were extinguished, these persecuted men returned, and were 
every where regarded with intense interest. John Knox had been 
of their number. They soon acquired commanding influence. 



* 2d Stebbing's History of the Christian Church, 307. 

1 See note D, in Appendix. 

t 3d M'tntosh's History, 185, 18G. 



15 

They were generally men of true piety and acknowledged ability. 
They urged further reforms in the discipline and ceremonial of the 
established church. This was opposed by Elizabeth ; but such was 
their weight, that she was only able with all her influence as a Pro- 
testant queen, to resist the movement by a vote of 59 to 58* in the 
ecclesiastical council ; those in the minority being of greatest weight 
both in council and at court. This strong resistance to the will of a 
queen of the house of Tudor, a daughter of Henry VIII., put her to 
the assertion of her high prerogatives. She proceeded at once to 
extremes against those who had dared to oppose her. The Court of 
Star Chamber was set to work with all its appropriate and colla- 
teral engines, not excepting the pillory and the rack. These stern 
opposers of arbitrary despotism were nick-named Puritans, be- 
cause of their adherence to rigid principles. We are told, that 
" their strength was in great towns, the scenes of bold discussion, 
and the favourite dwelling of bold innovation." Elizabeth, in the 
school of her father, had seen men punished for teaching their 
children the Lord's prayer in their own language; for reading the 
New Testament in the same language, she had seen them subject- 
ed to the pains and penalties of the Star Chamber. To entertain 
a persecuted preacher, to neglect a fast, had been capital oflfences. 
Sir Thomas More pronounced some of these sentences, and wit- 
nessed their execution — then lost his own head for not conceding 
that Henry, in England, should be regarded as the head of the 
church. She profited by the lesson. But the cruelty of the father 
Avas in keeping with his vices : hers had not this apology, and 
was the more odious because of her sex. 

These things must be called to mind, considered, and reconsi- 
dered, to enable us to form an adequate idea of the persecution 
our forefathers had undergone in England, and to understand the 



:5d M'Intosli's History, 132-3. 



16 

tnie value of civil and relifrious liberty. It was under such perse- 
cutions, that Puritanism sprung into existence. 

It may be worth while here, to examine a little the justice of the 
sneers with which a certain great historian commonly treats the 
Puritan character. It should be remembered, that one object of 
the same historian is to bring all Christianity into contempt. Treat- 
ing of the times which we have been considering, on one page he 
pronounces toleration " paradoxical in principle, salutary in prac- 
tice."* On the next, he refers to certain early doctrines held by 
the first reformers in common, and still retained by the Puritans, 
as " affording the highest subject of joy, triumph and security," 
and intimately connected with that enthusiastic spirit which pro- 
duced such great results, as yet in theory absurd, and when exa- 
mined by the test of human reason also paradoxical. Mutato no- 
mine de te fabula nurratur. The principles of the early re- 
formers styled Calvinistic, are, like toleration, "paradoxical in 
theory, salutary in practice." Thus we find him throughout. 
Speaking of the passive obedience and non-resistance every where 
inculcated in the reign of James I., he says: "It was only during 
the next generation that the noble principles of liberty took root, 
and spreading themselves under the shelter of puritanical absur- 
dities, became fashionable among the people. "t Wonderful philo- 
sophy, to bring into such close alliance, such continual and inti- 
mate connexion and mutual relation, absurdities and benignities — 
teaching that things absurd in nature are yet benign in action. To 
solve the enigma, we must regard the one as a fact, while the 
other is but an opinion. 

Again: "The English have no reason, from the example of 
their ancestors, to be in love with the picture of absolute monar- 



* 3d Vol. Hume's History, 330. 
\ Ibid, 226. 



17 

chy, or to prefer the unlimited authority of the prince, and his 
unbounded prerogatives, to that noble liberty, that sweet equality, 
and that happy security by which they are at present distinguished 
above all nations of the universe."* But, for these priceless 
blessings, his entire history teaches, they are indebted Avholly to 
the Puritans. Indeed, he says, in another passage, in so many 
words, speaking of the Puritans, " by whom alone the precious 
spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved, and to 
whom the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution." 
He describes them as men of " independent genius and large 
views, governed more by future consequences than former pre- 
cedents." He admits that ancient and recent precedents, so late 
as the time of James I., were " diametrically opposed to all the 
principles of a free government; "t and we learn from him that 
absolutism was filched by the civil power from the ecclesiastical, 
in the contest of Henry with the Pope, engrafted by him into 
their constitution, and cherished by Elizabeth and James I. Hence, 
he informs us, although the reformed church in England, as esta- 
blished by Elizabeth, had embraced the early Calvinistic doctrines 
of the Puritans, yet, " at the restoration, the church, though she 
still retained her old subscriptions and articles of faith, was found 
to have totally changed her speculative doctrines, and to have em- 
braced tenets more suitable to the genius of her discipline and 
worship, without its being possible to assign the precise period in 
which the alteration was produced. "J In other words, the specu- 
lative doctrine of the church of the Reformation were found so to 
work in practice, as to have come into exceeding bad odour when 
royalty was restored to power. 

In tracing the causes which led to the overthrow of absolute 



* 3d Vol. Hume's History, 227. 

t Ibid. 268. t Ibid. 831. 



18 

power, he says, that many of the leaders among the commons 
were of the Puritanical party, and had " secretly embraced the 
rigid tenets of their sect," — " although their religious schemes 
appear frivolous,* men of the greatest parts and most extensive 
knowledge adopted them." He recognises the leaders of the 
House of Commons, in the time of Charles I., as of uncommon 
capacity and the largest views, " generous patriots, actuated by a 
warm regard to liberty, boldly embracing the side of freedom." 
Here is the palpable impersonation of an infidel philosopher in a 
fog : he sees " men as trees walking." Hampden, Pym, and 
Vane, are made identical Avith what is " frivolous" in the most 
sacred transaction of their lives ; men, the like of whom none 
ever lived before or since in England. The brightness of their 
character and the greatness of their deeds have been the admira- 
tion of all succeeding ages. 

When he treats of the German reformers, the same cloud of in- 
fidelity obscures his mental vision. He admits that Melancthon, 
Bucer, and their co-labourers, were of the greatest importance in 
the world ; " that no poet or philosopher, even in ancient Greece, 
where they were treated with most respect, had ever reached 
equal applause and admiration ;" and then he stigmatizes them as 
"wretched composers of metaphysical polemics." 

In summing up the argument between the partisans of the court 
and the friends of liberty, he gives decided preponderance to the 
reasoning of the latter ; and speaks of " that sacred liberty which 
heroic spirits, in all ages, have deemed more precious than life 
itself." And in the civil war which is to follow, he says, that 
"the good and virtuous would hardly know what vows to form, 
were it not that liberty, so necessary to the perfection of human 
society, would be sufficient to bias their affections towards the 



3d Vol. Hume's History, 35'2. 



19 

side of its defenders."* And then again, to come to the matter in 
hand, " the Puritans, restrained in England, shipped themselves 
off for America, and laid the foundations of a government which 
possessed all the liberty, both civil and religious, of which they 
found themselves bereaved in their native country."! Yes, "ship- 
ped themselves off," with their "frivolous schemes," their "para- 
doxical creed," their "absurd doctrines;" and notwithstanding this 
superabundance of folly, paradox, and nonsense, wrought out for 
themselves and for the generations which come after them, super- 
abounding good. We stand here this day to vindicate their fair 
fame from infidel sneers. The blessings of good government, 
"like the dew of Hermon," are silent and unseen. " The evil 
that men do lives after them." A sacred duty is devolved upon 
us to take care that the "good" done by our ancestors shall not 
"be interred with their bones." 

But the descendants of the Pilgrims might forgive the infidel 
historian all his prejudice against the religion of their forefathers, 
in consideration of the seeming magnanimity of his avowal in the 
concluding chapter of his story — "No man," says Hume, "has 
yet arisen, who has paid an entire regard to truth, and has dared 
to expose her, without covering or disguise, to the eyes of the 
prejudiced public. "f 

This is, indeed, a precious admission— what but to give notice 
to all — "in concluding this history, I must candidly acknowledge, 
I have not been able always to speak the truth ; I had not the 
moral courage to dare to do it; the prejudices by which I was 
surrounded forced me to cover it up and disguise it." Had this 
been said in the tone and manner of confession, as a matter to be 
repented of and reformed, it would be one thing: but it is a 
simple and naked avowal, with no seeming consciousness that it 



* 3d Vol. Hume's History, 353. t Ibid. 411. 

t 4lh Vol. 427. 



20 

betrays want of principle, obliquity of design, slavish fear; indi- 
cating an utter perversion of the moral sense. In the same para- 
grapli he illustrates this theory of his admission by his own con- 
duct, thus — he presents to us in subtle, sophistical, and incompre- 
hensible combination, the course of the whigs, as having led to 
"the increase of law and liberty;" themselves as actuated by the 
"highest regard to liberty;" "noble in their ends and highly bene- 
ficial to mankind;" and yet, at the same time, governed by "rage 
and folly;" charging it upon them as a calumny, that they had 
propagated that "Charles I. was a tyrant," thereby infatuating and 
corrupting the people, and promoting violence in the name of 
liberty and justice, and proceeding through a course of "delu- 
sions," till they reached "a fiction which exceeds the ordinary 
bounds of human credulity!" This is, indeed, "wonderful;" to 
borrow his own phrase — alike wonderful and incomprehensible — 
the very climax of "covering up and disguising the truth from the 
eyes of a prejudiced public," amounting to something more than 
simple paradox, and meriting the retaliation of some of his own 
phrases, before applied to the Puritans when speaking of their 
doctrines as '■'■frivolous nonsense." A calumny, indeed, to say 
that "Charles I. was a tyrant!" A calumny of such malignity and 
enormity, as to indicate "rage and folly in its authors!" This 
could only have been said by one who had already written of 
this same Charles — " we stand astonished, that, among a civilized 
people, so much virtue should ever meet with so fatal a catas- 
trophe." 

Now the indubitable historical fact is, that the " two distinctive 
and decisive traits (of Charles I.) were despotism and bad faith."* 
He exhibited the " ruling passion strong in death," when he said, 
upon the scaftbld, that " he died the martyr of the people," ad- 
ding, " a share of the government being nothing pertaining to 

* 6lh Vol. Con. of Sir James M'Intosh's History, 127. 



21 

them." Of this it has been remarked, by one who had no fear of 
speaking the truth in the atmosphere of royalty, that " if he is to 
be esteemed a martyr, it is to the right and perpetuity of tyrannic 
power in the kings of England."* How can his admirers, who 
see no fault in his character, forget the occasion of that celebrated 
exclamation by Strafford, "Put not your trust in princes," al- 
though the memory of it haunted Charles in his dying moments, 
and wrung from him the confession of " his having permitted an 
iniquitous sentence, which was then visited upon him in his own." 
If king ever owed any thing to subject, Charles owed it to Straf- 
ford, and yet he had the pusillanimity, against his own convic- 
tions of right and justice, nay, against a solemn pledge, when the 
life of his great minister was in his power, to permit him to be 
executed. 

The apology for Charles is to be found in his having been 
taught to believe monarchy of " right divine," and that as he in- 
herited the crown of the Tudors, so he might justly exercise the 
full extent of prerogative claimed by Henry VHI. and Elizabeth, 
as had been done by his father, James I. Had he been suffered 
to go on, the nation must have sunk to the same degrading servi- 
tude, which Hume himself detects in the former reigns. 

Such was the character of the government from which our fore- 
fathers fled for refuge to " the depths of the desert gloom." 

It would be pleasant to spend some little time with the Pilgrims 
in Holland, if only to correct an error which long had currency, 
and into which some of our friends have fallen, as to the true 
character of their relations there, and the reasons of their depar- 
ture.! But time forbids. 

The old story of a Dutch captain of the Mayflower, bribed to 
avoid the fertile banks of the Hudson, has been long since ex- 

* 6th Vol. Con. of Sir James M'Intosh's History, p. 126. 
f See note E, in Appendix. 



22 

ploded. We cherish the faith which teaches that it was an over- 
ruling power which delayed the little barque so long upon her 
voyage, and determined her approach, after winter had begun, to 
the bleak shores of the old Bay State, creating a necessity there 
to land. But for this faith, how can we reconcile ourselves to 
those thousand ills of life, the wisdom of which we cannot now 
see, but " which we shall see hereafter." The one idea of the 
Pilgrims was the strength of their Faith and Hope — their trust in 
God — and this was sublime, beyond the comprehension of infidel 
philosophy. 

It is not proposed here to go over the chronicles of the Pilgrims, 
to recapitulate for the thousandth time what they did and what 
they suffered, with illustrations of their many virtues, their strik- 
ing peculiarities, and their few but prominent errors. 

They landed at Plymouth, on the 22d of December, 1620. 
They went through incredible hardships, and soon lost half their 
number. A step in advance of their brother Puritans, had entitled 
them to the designation of Separatists, and the honours of especial 
persecution. In their new position they were regarded with in- 
tense interest by their brethren, and were speedily reinforced. 
Within the next ten years, Endicott and Winthrop, with more 
numerous trains of followers, and more ample resources, settled 
in the vicinity of Boston. These had not separated themselves 
from the church of England, like the Plymouth Pilgrims, but were 
what was styled Non-conformists, of which character were all the 
subsequent settlements in New England. The difference between 
these two classes in England had been great ; here it was soon 
forgotten, and is now only remembered as a matter of curious 
history. They were all Puritans. Impelled by similar motives, 
they had all fled to the wilderness, and have always been regarded 
as identical. We avoid the minute chronology of the settlement 
of these respective colonies, familiar no doubt to all. They oc- 
curred within the first twenty years. 



23 

The class to which they belong has been styled " the most re- 
markable body of men the world has ever produced."* Certain 
it is, they have been more unjustly treated than any body of men 
the world has ever produced. We protest against the extrava- 
gance both of praise and of censure with which their character has 
been sketched by one of the most distinguished writers of the day. 
There is no arriving at the sober certainty of truth in the midst of 
such violent contrasts. We protest also against the super-sublima- 
tion of the character of their great champion, by a scarce less dis- 
tinguished writer. We live in an age when the public taste re- 
quires that all should be in heroics, and our literary caterers yield 
to its demands. We are on the very verge of the mock-heroics. 
It might even be well that some Cervantes should send us another 
knight errant, of peerless honour, stainless virtue, dauntless cour- 
age, and truthful love, who should make us so laugh at our own 
follies, by his whole-souled and simple-hearted extravaganza, as 
to bring back things to the modesty of nature. Now, to arrest 
attention, every thing must be presented in the shape of paradox. 
The reviewer makes his shades so very dark, and his lights so 
very bright, as to give a series of startling contradictions. His- 
tory, to be attractive, must be clothed in the guise of fiction. The 
historical novel bewilders by its mixture of truth with falsehood. 
The pathos of song must have its equivalent of humour to make 
us laugh when we should rather weep. Learning must be made 
picturesque, and the common incidents of life dramatised to ap- 
pear as so many oddities. We have all got to be, some how, 
bizarre : the whole world is fast becoming grotesque. Caricature 
is a perfect passion with us : not only the pen and pencil and the 
burin minister to it ; but the art of printing. Our good old fash- 
ioned English capitals, when used to usher in a grave topic, must 



* Macaulay. 



24 

nevertheless have their circumambients of all sorts of comicalities. 
Whether Jeffrey, or Macaulay, or Carlyle, or Theodore Hook, or 
Tom Hood, have aided to bring about this state of things, and 
which most, certain it is that in the popular literature of the day 
Punch and Boz are lords of the ascendant. 

Why should a sincere religious profession be regarded as ridi- 
culous and incomprehensible ; earnest devotion as fanaticism, and 
all conversation on the subject out of church, or on any other day 
but Sunday, as cant ? 

Washington was not ashamed to acknowledge his obligations to 
the God of battles : Washington, of whom it may be said with 
more propriety than of the great captain to whom the words have 
been applied, — 

Cujus negotium, an otium, 
Gloriosius incerlum. 

Franklin, when the members of that old Congress, which declared 
our independence, were in their darkest hour of adversity, pro- 
posed that they should seek wisdom from above. The President 
of the United States, in his annual message to Congress, still re- 
cognises the " divine guidance." Nay, we date every transaction 
in life with reference to the Christian era ; and this, by common 
consent, throughout the Christian Avorld. The event which it 
commemorates is regarded as the bright particular spot in the his- 
tory of our race. Thus the entire Christian world recognises 
one great truth in common, as paramount to every other. Why 
should it be that when we come to treat of this subject, we must 
study a curious felicity of speech to avoid the imputation of cant, 
always offensive to " ears polite ?" Such is human nature. 

But time has done much for the Puritan character. We must 
not withhold our acknowledgments to Macaulay and Carlyle for 
their labours in this behalf, although we have ventured to protest 
against certain peculiarities of style. The change in public opi- 



25 

nion respecting the true character of Cromwell, the great Puritan 
champion, now almost universal, is to be ascribed, mainly, to their 
efforts.* The article upon Milton, which appeared in the Edin- 
burg Review some twenty years ago, produced a great sensation, 
and paved the way for what has followed. Forster, in his Lives 
of Eminent British Statesmen, first published in the Cabinet Cy- 
clopaedia; and the continuation of Sir James M'Intosh's History 
by Wallace, aided in accomplishing this object. But the recent 
work by Carlyle upon Cromwell is a marvel. It is a marvel 
in itself, and has produced a still greater marvel in having con- 
vinced the Blackwood writers that Cromwell was not a hypocrite. 
His magazine says that the perusal of Carlyle's volumes will dis- 
abuse any candid and intelligent mind of this hypothesis. It is a 
marvel in having been made the foundation of another life of the 
Puritan champion by D'Aubigne. It is a marvel in itself, because 
of its profound investigation and research ; its unparalleled dex- 
terity in the use of chronology ; its fearless and independent tone ; 
its power and pathos, and eloquence and entertaining incident — and 
this all covered up in a style so odd and strange, that you have 
every now and then to stop to determine whether to laugh or cry.t 
Carlyle has not satisfied us that Cromwell was perfect, either as 
a man or as a statesman. But he has demonstrated that Crom- 



* Macaulay and Carlyle both bear testimony, that while the character of 
Cromwell has been the object alike of ridicule and denunciation, ever since 
the restoration, without anj' one to defend it, still it has constantly main- 
tained its hold upon the admiration of the great mass of the people of Eng- 
land, and that this has rather increased than diminished with the lapse of 
time. 

t It is remarkable that Carlyle refers to a letter from John Maidstone, one 
of the Protector's household, to Governor Winthrop, of Connecticut, as fur- 
nishing more insight into the true character of Cromwell than any of his 
express biographies. This letter is published in an Appendix to Forster's 
Life of Cromwell, in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, occupying twelve pages. 
D 



26 

well did all that any mere man could do under the circumstances ; 
that he did more than any other man who ever lived has done as 
a sovereign, for liberty and truth ; that he was unsurpassed in the 
excellence of his domestic relations, pre-eminent in council as in 
the field, and that he died in the " full assurance of hope." Of what 
other conqueror can it be said, that — " he never fought a battle 
without gaining a victory. He never gained a victory ivithout 
annihilating the force opposed to him."* What other sovereign 
ever avowed sentiments in favour of religious toleration, like those 
words of the Lord Protector to his Parliament, — " if the poorest 
Christian, the most mistaken Christian, should desire to live 
peaceably and quietly under you, let him be protected."! 

The able author of the Lives of Eminent British Statesmen, 
appears to have lent himself to the old theory of hypocrisy, not- 
withstanding the general liberality of his strain. Carlyle com- 
mends his work, but speaks of him as endowed " with energy in 
abundance and superabundance." All these men of superabundant 
energy run into paradoxical extemes. Mr. Forster speaks of Crom- 
well, as " a solitary specimen of a great man, who was not also a 
true one ;"f and yet he says, in conclusion, speaking of his death, § 
which occurred on the eve of the anniversary of the day on which 
he achieved each of his great victories, at Worcester and Dunbar, 
" It was indeed a night which prophesied a woful time to Eng- 
land, but to Cromwell it proved a night of happiness. It ushered 
in for him, far more surely than at Worcester or Dunbar, his 
FORTUNATE DAY." What confidence can we place in any estimate 
of character by one who supposes that his hero may find happi- 
ness in death, although in life he was not a man of truth ; or how 
can we suppose that to be a fortunate day for such a man, on 



"* Macaulay. 

i 7th Vol. Forster's Eminent British Statesmen, 15G. 

; Ibid. 274. § Ibid. 392. 



27 

which he exchanges the probation of time for the retributions of 
Eternity — leaves a frowning world to meet an angry God ! 

An able writer in Blackwood, in his review of Carlyle, while he 
exempts Cromwell from hypocrisy, charges his faults to the peculi- 
arities of his creed. He says, again and again, he was a genuine 
Puritan — "every where and throughout, the genuine, fervid Puri- 
tan"— "the Puritan general, the Puritan statesman" — "it is as the 
great Puritan that he must ever be rembembered in history." 
But he would have us believe that Puritanism itself was all a 
cheat. Cromwell was honest, but his religion was false, says 
Blackwood, thus — " His religion, genuine as it was, would no 
more prevent him from the practice of this necessary craft than 
from the sanguinary deeds not more necessary to the triumph of 
his cause." — " When the saints were in the ascendant, dissimula- 
tion would unavoidably take a religious form." We protest 
against having such a religion as this palmed off upon our fore- 
fathers. It is the reasoning of a monarchist, who has no concep- 
tion of religion, except as a matter of king-craft. That is the 
only true religion with him, which best sustains the divine right 
of the king his master. He flatters himself that he has taken a 
step beyond Clarendon and Hume, and the herd who have fol- 
lowed them in putting forward hypocrisy as the clue to Crom- 
well's character ; but he has taken a false step. He admits that 
Cromwell is not the least extraordinary, nor the " least misrepre- 
sented personage in history," and says, " we look upon this hy- 
pothesis, this Machiavelian explanation of Cromwell's character, 
as henceforth entirely dismissed from all candid and intelligent 
minds." — "It has lasted long enough." — " It may now be torn 
into shreds, and cast aside as utterly faithless." He then pro- 
ceeds, deliberately, to place a fooVs cap on his head, demonstra- 
ting to his own entire satisfaction, that the religion of the Puritans, 
which Cromwell sincerely professed, was the quintessence of 
folly ! 



28 

And yet he concedes to him throughout his elaborate, in- 
genious, and eloquent article, the possession of rare virtues and 
strong conscientiousness, and expresses great admiration of some 
concluding passages of his life, when, as he beautifully remarks, 
— " the sere and yellow leaf is falling on the shelterless head of 
the royal Puritan." 

Cromwell first girt on his sword as Captain of the Ironsides, in 
1642.* His great deeds were all achieved within the seventeen 
years ensuing. He died in 1658, under sixty years of age. He 
had been a farmer of St. Ives. From being captain of a company 
of yeoman cavalry, in ten years he became the greatest captain of 
his time. All his battles were fought before 1652. His pre-emi- 
nent abilities made him Lord Protector. His military fame had 
already become world-wide ; as a statesman he attained equal re- 
nown. He was, indisputably, the master-spirit of the age. All 
history does not furnish his parallel. No other man ever accom- 
plished so much in the same time. None of the legitimate sove- 
reigns of England can be at all compared to him. He was a man 
every way estimable in the relations of private life, and his virtue 
did not succumb before the temptations of his great and sudden 
elevation. His public character has long been a difficult problem. 
The descendants of the Puritans owe a debt of gratitude to Carlyle 
for placing it in a true light. He was the cotemporary of the 
Pilgrims. He was of their own creed. He drew his sword to 
resist the same tyranny which had driven them into the wilder- 
ness. He was actuated by the same religious principles, the same 
motives. They lived and died by these principles and have per- 
petuated them here. Their influence has been illustrated in the 
lives and conduct of each succeeding generation, and the result is 



* If we examine the records, more than one of the sons of New England 
will find the names of ancestors made freemen of Massachusetts In that vear. 



29 

before us. The world sees it. It is time to have done with these 
sneers at the religion of the Puritans. Let any other sect produce 
a braver or a better champion than Oliver Cromwell ; let any- 
other religion point to greater results, or better fruits — to more that 
has been done to honour God and improve the condition of man. 

We have been taught from earliest childhood to set a high esti- 
mate on the value of liberty. We see its emblem every where 
around us, as that of the guardian genius of our country. The 
day on which our fathers resolved to vindicate their right to the 
enjoyment of it, with life, fortune, and sacred honour, is celebrated 
as our great national anniversary. It was for this they drew the 
sword and returned it not again into the scabbard until they had 
won the greatest boon which heaven vouchsafes to man. Placi- 
dam sub Libert ate quiet em. Liberty and peace. Civil liberty 
and religious liberty. Liberty of conscience and peace of con- 
science — " that peace which passeth knowledge." This is the 
glorious boon for which our Puritan ancestors had been struggling 
since the days of Wickliffe. Unfortunately, in the enjoyment of 
civil and religious liberty, we forget or neglect too much the im- 
portance of moral liberty. Few, very few, it is to be feared, un- 
derstand the true meaning of this word, in the possession of which 
all profess so greatly to rejoice ; still fewer, probably, have any 
just or adequate sense of the responsibilities which it imposes. 

Shortly before our declaration of independence, there appeared 
in Great Britain a work on this subject, which produced a 
great sensation at the time.* It was entitled, " Observations on 
the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and 
the Justice and Policy of the War with America, by Richard 



* You might have seen it in the library of every American whig of the re- 
volution. Many a son of New England here to-day, no doubt, recollects his 
early wonder that this book should be deemed worthy of a place alongside of 
the family Bible, in the family library. 



30 

Price." The preface to the first edition is dated Feb. 8, 1776, 
that to the fifth, March 12, 1776. From the eighth edition, pub- 
hshed within the same year, we cite a single passage, such as 
when heard by those who have been so bitter in their denuncia- 
tion of the reUgion of our ancestors, one would suppose, should 
make their ears tingle. 

" I cannot help wishing I could here fix my reader's attention, 
and engage him to consider carefully the dignity of that blessing 
to which we give the name of Liberty, according to the represen- 
tation now made of it. There is not a word in the Avhole com- 
pass of language, which expresses so much of what is important 
and excellent. It is, in every view of it, a blessing truly sacred 
and invaluable. Without Physical Liberty, man would be a ma- 
chine acted upon by mechanical springs, having no principle of 
motion in himself, or command over events ; and therefore incapa- 
ble of all merit and demerit — without Moral Liberty, he is a wicked 
and detestable being, subject to the tyranny of base lusts, and the 
sport of every vile appetite — and without Civil and Religions Li- 
berty, he is a poor and abject animal, without rights, without pro- 
perty, and without a conscience, bending his neck to the yoke, 
and crouching to the will of every silly creature who has the inso- 
lence to pretend to authority over him. Nothing, therefore, can 
be of so much consequence to us as Liberty. It is the foundation 
of all honour, and the chief privilege and glory of our nature." 

Here we are taught, in 

"Thoughts that breathe and words that burn," 

that with Liberty man may fulfil his highest destiny — choose for 
himself the path of usefulness and happiness — ally himself to the 
highest order of created intelligences — fit himself to live and to 
die. Brave words, these, truly, and bravely spoken, — and brave 
Old England for permitting them to be spoken, and not punishing 
the author as Christian men were punished, who spoke God's 
truth in the ears of royalty, before the days of Oliver Cromwell; 
and this eight times over during the very year that America first 



31 

proclaimed liberty to the captive. Where were Laud, and the Star 
Chamber, and the Court of High Commission, once so blood- 
thirsty in vindication of the royal prerogative, and in teaching the 
people that " government was an affair with which they had no- 
thing to do ?" Thanks to the Puritans, these mighty engines of 
power had been crushed — the spell by which men had been held 
in slavery, was broken. Yes, thanks to the Puritans — " the gen- 
uine Puritan" — "the fervid Puritan" — "the conscientious, zealous 
Puritan" — " the Puritan general, the Puritan statesman"— the Pu- 
ritan of the same sect and stamp with those who " shipped them- 
selves off for America" — that some restraint is put upon the pre- 
rogative, some liberty reserved for the subject, and some rights se- 
cured to the people of England. 

The day we celebrate is second only in importance to that of 
the anniversary of our independence as a nation. Second, be- 
cause it witnessed but the planting of that tree, of which the other 
saw the blossoming. Sons of the Pilgrims, who first landed on 
the "stern and rock-bound coast" of New England, and there, at 
the expense of toil and suffering and blood, made for themselves 
and for their children a happy home, we meet, after the lapse of 
two hundred and twenty-seven years, in this fair land of Penn. 
Here, under the over-shadowing branches of this tree of liberty, 
we have cast our lot, and here many of us have numbered the 
greater part of "the days of our years." Here are our altars and 
our firesides, with the thousand ties and affinities which cluster 
around them — here our children have been born, and here we ex- 
pect to lay our bones. It is with no want of fealty to home and 
hearth-stone, that, on this festal day, our hearts yearn towards the 
land of our fathers. With hearts true to the natale solum, we 
can still bear testimony that our " lines have been cast in pleasant 
places." Upon a recent occasion, in this city, a distinguished 
gentleman paid a just tribute to the public spirit and liberal contri- 
butions of the citizens of Boston to scientific, literary, and benevo- 



32 

lent objects. We have been before indebted to the same source, 
for a notice of the New England character, and of New England 
men, spoken out openly and handsomely. We would gladly re- 
pay our neighbour for his kind office to the "town of Boston," 
by furnishing a list of Philadelphia contributions to religious, 
literary, scientific and benevolent objects, prepared by the dis- 
tinguished President of this Society. These statistics have been 
collected under an impression that we had not done ourselves jus- 
tice in this respect. No other city is, perhaps, so reserved in 
speaking of its own good deeds as Philadelphia. Ever ready to 
do justice to the public spirit of others, she seldom speaks of 
her own. It will be seen, upon examination, that we are not 
behind any other town in the Union in the exercise of phi- 
lanthropy. In truth, this city was founded by a sect proverbial 
for benevolence, and a large portion of its inhabitants have always 
devoted their spare time and money, systematically and regularly, 
to our great public charities. These furnish resources for their 
leisure hours, which others find in places of fashionable amuse- 
ment. The great amount of active but quiet and unseen charity 
always going on around us, is a marked characteristic of the city 
of Penn. Of the list which has been referred to, comprising more 
than one liundred and fifty public charities and bequests for public 
objects, we cannot afford space to state more, than that for the 
promotion of literature, the establishment of libraries, and for ge- 
neral education, about three million three hundred thousand dol- 
lars have been given by individuals, and provided by the public. 

For other benevolent and useful purposes, six million seven 
hundred thousand dollars, in testamentary and other modes of do- 
nation, have been bestowed by citizens of Philadelphia, making 
an aggregate of ten millions of dollars. This includes, of course, 
the Girard legacy. The public schools cost annually about two 
hundred and forty thousand dollars, educating thirty-six thousand 
six hundred and sixty-five children. 



33 

This authoritative statement will be regarded with the more in- 
terest, as coming from one who, through a long life of active use- 
fulness, public spirit, and enlightened intelligence, has done honour 
to the city of his birth in the city of his adoption, and now makes 
it, not that he loves Boston less, but Philadelphia more. We 
would not provoke invidious contrasts between Philadelphia and 
the city of the three hills. We are, in truth, here, now, in more 
intimate intercourse and closer contact with Boston than Plymouth 
was during all the time they belonged to separate colonies. In all 
respects of time, trouble and expense, we are nearer to Boston 
than they were in the old colony for two hundred years. The 
intercommunication is far greater. Such are the revolutions pro- 
duced by commerce, manufactures, rail-roads and the telegraph. 
Time was when the journey from Barnstable to Boston was a 
work of two days. From Berkshire, then their far west, to Bos- 
ton, four days. The man is now living who has seen and con- 
versed with the post-rider who took the entire mail in his saddle- 
bags, on horseback, between Boston and New York, going one 
week and returning the next. Now they can make the journey 
from Berkshire in one day ; we travel from here to Boston in 
twenty-four hours. We communicate by telegraph and obtain an 
answer in less than an hour. In truth, we are fast becoming one 
people. This vast commerce which has recently sprung up, our 
demand for and sale of their manufactures, their demand for* and 
consumption of our flour and coal and iron, create mutual interests 
and mutual dependence, while the rail-road and the telegraph fur- 
nish the means of quick responsive sympathies. Look at the 
immense amount of New England capital now invested here, not 
only in mercantile houses, but in our rail-roads and canals, in coal 
fields and iron-mines. Look at that fleet of coasters whose sails 
continually whiten the bosom of tlie Delaware ; look at that forest 
of masts at Richmond ; what does all this speak ? We must be 
one people. 

K 



34 

And while we rejoice in New England as the land of our fa- 
thers, the land of our l)irth, let us rejoice more that we are citi- 
zens of the United States. Let it be our chief pride and glory, 
that we enjoy the blessings of this Federal Union, and the hope to 
transmit them unimpaired to our children. 

There is a spot within the limits of the old colony, a forest of 
several thousand acres in extent, where the fallow deer and young 
fawn still have their range ; there may still be seen the wigwam 
and the slight canoe, together with some poor remnants of the 
race once monarchs of the soil. Within their iramedite vicinity, 
some of our ancestors have dwelt for more than two centuries, 
and a great part of their descendants still find their home. When 
the clarion sounded its cry for liberty in the war of the revolution, 
when the thunder of the artillery at Bunker Hill, came to them 
across the waters of the Massachusetts bay, you might see men 
of three generations of the same name and famUy, rallying in the 
same ranks, to stand by the men of Boston, of Lexington, and of 
Concord. Their efforts aided to establish this Union — to make 
this a free country ; to unite us as one country. Looking at their 
participation in this great work, our hearts swell with peculiar 
emotions as citizens of this republic. Let us ever cherish the re- 
collection as among the most interesting of the pleasant memories 
of father-land. 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE A.— page 11. 

The entire passage is this, — 

"The history of tyranny affords no example of a female of seven- 
teen, by command of a female, and a relation, put to death for 
acquiescence in the injunction of a father, sanctioned by the con- 
currence of all that the kingdom could boast of that was illustrious 
in nobility, or grave in law, or venerable in religion. The example 
is the more affecting, as it is that of a person who exhibited a match- 
less union of youth and beauty, with genius, with learning, with 
virtue, with piety ; whose affections were so warm, while her pas- 
sions were so perfectly subdued. It was a death sufficient to honour 
and dishonour an age." 



NOTE B.— page 11. 

We cite the following brief passages from a summary of her 
character. 

" She inherited the passions of her father. Her temper was im- 
patient, self-indulgent, jealous, savage, and tyrannical." 

"When she found her favourite, Essex, incorrigible, she delibe- 
rately cut off his head." 

" Her severities against the Roman Catholics are vindicated only 
by sophistry, and extenuated only by falsehood." 

" The spirit of her severities against the Puritans was more per- 
sonal and keen." 

" She foresaw, perhaps, that the Puritans were making the breach 
through which liberty and reason would one day enter."* 



* History of England continued from the late Sir James MIntosh, Vol. 
v., pp. 140, 147. 



36 



NOTE C— page 12. 

It is recorded, that " the day of his coronation was the worst 
weather of the season, and that eleven hundred persons died the 
same week, in London, of plague." 

" He swore that he would fight to the death against a toleration ; 
and he sent men to the tower for the offence of petitioning for it." 

"He altered the Book of Common Prayer, without reference to 
the clergy in convocation, and assumed despotic power in all matters, 
whether civil or ecclesiastical." 

When forced to call a Parliament in 1604, " he opened the session 
with a speech of rambling egotism, dictation and despotism, exceed- 
ing the usual length of a sermon." 

"In the third year of his reign he was reduced to extreme and 
degrading want. He could neither pay his servants nor supply his 
table," 

"The tone of prerogative, compared with the late reign, rose with 
the debility and folly of James, compared with the strength and pru- 
dence of Elizabeth. This state of things led actually to the great 
catastrophe of the next reign. The only matter of surprise is, that 
it was delayed so long." 

" The example of his vulgarity and his vices debased the court. 
No idea can be formed of the indecency and dissolution that pre- 
vailed there."* 



NOTE D.— page 14. 

Sir James M'Intosh says, in his third volume of the History of 
England, chapter fourth, at page 185, — 

"The first movement of the human miud in the sixteenth century 
which may be called Lutheran, was very distinguishable from the 
religious convulsions which afterwards ensued. The German re- 
formation was effected by princes in form subordinate, in fact inde- 
pendent. As soon as the revolt of the boors was suppressed, the 
new religion coalesced with the established government as perfectly 
as the ancient faith had before done. All changes were introduced 
by legal authority, and the same power restrained them within their 
original limits. If some German states had not adopted a Calvinistic 
system, which gave rise to the distinction between ' Evangelicals 



Continuation of Sir James M'Intoshs History. 



I 



37 

and Reformed,' there would have been no inlet left for toleration 
among the rigid doctors of the Saxon reform. But after a time, 
being most rekictantly compelled to make common cause against 
the church of Rome, they very slowly learned the necessity of ex- 
tending the boundaries of toleration beyond those of common belief. 
The principle of the Lutherans was the right of the civil ruler to re- 
form religion, and to maintain it as it was reformed. Laws had 
established Lutheranism : it had been the object of negotiation, and 
consequently liable to some compromise. Treaties had secured the 
religion of each separate state. At the point where we now pause, 
the face of Germany was calm, and its general quiet was for many 
years after undisturbed. 

" The second religious movement, called Calvinistic, was of more 
popular origin, and rose in defiance of the authorities of the world. 
In France and the Low Countries, its principal seat, it had to strug- 
gle with bigoted sovereigns and cruel laws. The reformation was in- 
deed every where connected with civil liberty. But among the Lu- 
therans the connexion was long invisible, and the fruits of it very 
slowly ripened. Among the French and Belgic Calvinists who were 
obliged to resist the civil as well as the ecclesiastical superiors, the 
connexion of civil and religious liberty was no longer indirect. It 
forced itself on the eyes and hearts of all Protestants. It had long 
before been foretold that a revolt against the ancient authority of the 
church would shake the absolute power of monarchs to its founda- 
tion. But it was not till princes became religious persecutors that 
persecuted subjects inquired into the source and boundaries of poli- 
tical power. The Calvinists resisted their monarch in order to de- 
fend themselves." 



NOTE E.— page 21. 

In Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, at page 48, after giving the 
reasons assigned by Bradford and Winslow, why the Pilgrims left 
Holland, we have the following note. 

" These reasons for their removal, as stated by Bradford and Wins- 
low, are sufficient, and are to be received as the true and sole rea- 
sons. Yet Douglass, in his Summary, i. 369, says, ' Being of unstea- 
dy temper, they resolved to remove to some remote country in some 
wilderness, — as recluses.' Chalmers, in his Political Annals, p. 85, 
says, ' After twelve years' unmolested residence they became un- 
happy in their situation, because they foresaw the desf ruction of 
their society in the toleration they enjoyed ; and determined to seek 



38 

new adventures in America. Continuing unhappy in a country 
"where tliey were obscure and unpersecuted,' &c. Robertson, in his 
History of America, Book X., says, ' They resided at Leyden for 
several years unmolested and obscure. But as their church re- 
ceived no increase, either by recruits from England or by proselytes 
gained in the country, they began to be afraid that all their high at- 
tainments in spiritual knowledge would be lost, if they remained 
longer in a strange land.' And Burke, in his account of the Eu- 
ropean Settlements in America, says tliat ' though in a country of 
the greatest religious freedom in the world, they did not find them- 
selves better satisfied than they had been in England. They were 
tolerated indeed, but watched ; their zeal began to have dangerous 
languors for want of opposition ; and being without power or conse- 
quence, they grew tired of the indolent security of their sanctuary.' 
These sneers are as contemptible as they are unjust. It is to be re- 
gretted that any respectable writer in this country should have in- 
cautiously given currency to such misrepresentations. Chief Justice 
Marshall perceived and corrected the error into which he had been 
led by following such unworthy authorities. Compare his Life of 
Washington, i. 90, (first ed.) with his History of the American Colo- 
nies, p. 78." 



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